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I don’t know whether or not Chris Christie had anything to do with the plan to gum up the George Washington Bridge. He says he didn’t, but whether you believe that is subject to the same rules that cause us to horselaugh when Obama says he didn’t know about the IRS. Or Benghazi. Or the NSA. Or______ (fill in the blank.) We don’t believe it, right? So: Christie has to contend with that.

One thing I like about his reaction is that he instantly canned his campaign manager, and the aide who signed the leaked (or hacked, or stolen, or whatever) emails talking about it. That’s the correct reaction, and it’s been all too often absent in recent crises, going right back to 9/11. It offends me to this second that after those 19 mopes brought down those towers, nobody – nobody – has to the present moment been fired. Nobody. Not one fuck-up anywhere has been let go. Not anybody at Immigration who let them in (“Uh – what’s your American contact address, Abdul?” “Hotel America, Washington DC.” Oh, fine” {Sound of stamping paperwork}). Not anybody at State for ditto. Not anybody at airport security on the day – they caught the bastards at Logan in Boston, and still decided to let them board the goddam plane! Not anybody at the FAA for all arranging to duck responsibility by arranging to be on a break – a dozen people! – out of the room when a crucial question required an immediate answer. Not anyone in the intelligence community for being a generalized dipshit moron. No one. Bush didn’t demand a single head for the most epic failure since Pearl Harbor, and not one single person below his pay-grade has thought in the decade-plus since that anybody had to go, either. That offends the hell out of me, as someone who’s spent a life in the private sector and knows what the consequences of being an egregious failure at your job should be. Particularly when people die.

So I appreciate Christie’s reaction. When shown a demonstrable boil on his political ass, he lances it. That is the correct reaction.

On the other hand: Christie. I don’t much like him. I appreciate that he has to, on a professional level, be full of excrement because look where he lives, and what he’s trying to govern. Okay. We all get that. But, when Hurricane, or Superstorm, or Charlie’s Aunt Sandy went ripping through, did he suppose FEMA wasn’t going to show up unless he kissed Obama’s ass in public? Even Andrew Cuomo and Bloomberg had the nous to tell the White House: “we’re busy. A little preoccupied here. Send the money, keep the dog and pony show at home, we don’t have time for photo-ops on your behalf.” Not Christie. I don’t know what the hell he thought he was doing, but he was the world’s fattest performing seal when the dog-and-pony showed up on the boardwalk. (And I did write him and say: (A) “did you figure the aid wouldn’t show up unless you let him show up?” And (B) “why didn’t you just suck his ___ for him while he was there? It would have made your gratitude even more effulgent.” Oddly enough, no one’s written back. I figure it’s because nobody in New Jersey knows what ‘effulgent’ means.)

And then his ‘keynote’ speech at the convention. It goes, I imagine, down in history as the first and thus far only keynote speech at any convention anywhere that did not once mention the name of the candidate the point of the convention was to nominate. Not once did he mention Romney’s name. Now, I’m no Romney fan or apologist, but I did think at the time: “you petty fat bastard. You didn’t get the nomination for VP, so you’ve decided to piss all overt the process here. Lurking inside that whale-like mound of blubber is a very, very, very small person.”

So that was it for me, one late-summer slide into autumn, a matter of about 55 days, and I’m done with Jersey City Fats forever. But whether he was in up to his neck or is as pure as he’d like us to believe, he did react correctly to this bridge thing. It doesn’t rehabilitate him for me, not in the least: but it is an object lesson for other politicians, who should have fired Sebelius and Holder long ago. I’ll give him a half-hearted clap or two for that example.

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